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Story Time With Digi: Quest for Quesalupas

Prelude: Taco Bell ran a promotion for a new product leading up to today. The idea was, you pre-ordered sight unseen on their website and would receive further instruction by email on how to finish up the order this morning, Saturday February 6th.

Excitement built to today. The Digifam planned on lunch at Taco Bell and then off for some grocery shopping for some treats for the big game tomorrow. Then I got out of bed about 10am and no email yet. 11am came, no email. In the mean time while looking into why I wouldn't have recieved my email, I found out the mystery item is none other than the Quesalupa. A taco with a quesadilla as the shell. Noon came and there was no email. I reached out to some friends. Mixed results of getting the email or not but already success stories of east coast Quesalupas in hand. I decided we would continue on as planned, present my pre-order confirmation and figured I would have no troubles.

Turns out for the first time in years, my spam filter had betrayed me and hid the coveted update email from this morning. Not only that, I there was a second email that hit my spam box a mere minutes before me finding them (~12:50pm). The first email (9:00am) was as expected, advising to log into ta.co and place my order and I would be able to pick my order up between 2 and 4pm. Sweet. The second email stated that if I wanted I could go in and pay for a preorder in-store and then still pick it up between 2 and 4.

I logged into the website and found the Quesalupa on the menu but alas no image displayed and when I clicked to add the item to my cart, I got 404 Page not found. It made sense to me. This thing is so popular that their ordering system is having trouble and the second email was giving an alternative way to pre-order by going in store. Printed the two emails and we were off.

We parked at Taco Bell at right about 2pm. "Heh," I thought to myself, "We're 'That Guy'"

Sat the ladies down at a table and went up to order. Advised the young lady taking our order that I pre-ordered but the ability to place the order on the website this morning was giving me troubles. I asked if ordering the Quesalupa would be any problems? She looked at me with 1/2 deer in the headlights, 1/2 scared look on her face. She turned and saw her manager, she stepped back and I could see her say "He knows about the Quesolupa."

He looked up at me, came over and explained that those won't be for sale until Monday. I asked, about the pre-orders and all the hype on the Internet and was met with scrambled answers. I got the vibe that they either were unfamiliar with the promotion (which was unlikely as there were at least 4 giant tacobell.com/preorder posters in the windows of their restaurant) or they were under the impression that they were not supposed to talk about it so I didn't question further. Nothing to raise drama over. I ordered my nachos, cheesy potato burrito, and Baja Blast along with food for the ladies and paid. I guess we'll just head back for lunch on Monday to give it a shot.

We sat down. I picked up our order when it was ready. I shot a message to a group chat,

I'm more upset than I should be. The employee attempting to take my order and the manager both looked at me like I was crazy. Had no idea what I was talking about.

And started into my nachos with some delicious Fire sauce. About 3 minutes later the manager came out to our table. He explained he had just spoken to his boss and had been advised they should be giving the Quesalupas to anyone that asks about them but that the order would have to be placed through the app. I had no problem with this. I shared the emails I had printed out just to update him on what his customers are seeing in case anyone else comes in today before 4. We agreed I would place the order on the app and I'll let him know if there were any issues.

Not ever ordering on the app before, I wasn't sure how that would work but I was easily able to place the order, pay, and indicate I was at the restaurant so they could go ahead and prepare the trio of deliciousness I had just paid for.

From my chair I could see in the back behind the counter where the food was being prepared. Shortly after submitting my order, I could see things being opened. This had to be the new shells. I watched an employee with one of the shells in his hand (flat at the time) looking perplexed. He then karate chopped it to fold it. He did this twice more placing each shell into a wire frame for frying. Into the fryer they went. Shortly after, out they came.

I watched the same employee take the shells over the the manager who was at the preparation counter. I picked up a sense of pride and relief as he handed over the shells. They came out right the first time. A couple minutes later the manager came out from behind the counter with a bag and brought it straight over to our table. He then advised us that we were the first ones to try these. They, as employees, had not even had a chance to try them yet. They were curious. He asked us to let them know how they were.

They were delicious. It's like a Chalupa with a cheese stuffed shell. The cheese is a pepper jack and has amazing flavor. I reported to the manager, "Two Thumbs Up, Would Quesalupa Again!"

If you didn't get in on the pre-order today and you are a Taco Bell fan, do yourself a favor and treat yourself to a Quesalupa sometime soon (starting Monday apparently).

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Comments

Sounds like a pretty interesting day, from the way you guys have been talking about them I'd love to give a Quesaloupa a try but unfortunately Canada Taco Bell sucks and I've heard and seen nothing about this. Maybe sometime when I'm State side we can all hit one up as a group.

@UPSLynx said:
After using the Steam Controller in a few different scenarios, I've come to the conclusion that the thing just isn't for me. It's attempting to solve a problem that doesn't need a solution. Game controller function and ergonomics are the result of decades of R&D, and we didn't get to where we are by accident. The paradigm doesn't need a shift this big, and if PC gamers are destined to play from the couch, then I don't think this is the step required to make that happen.

So I had a similar experience (and a lot of my bros dealt with the same thing from what I've heard). The app and website were SUPER broken, and it's clear that their servers just weren't ready for this kind of hype.

I had my pre-order, and seriously woke up this morning and thought about it first thing when I woke up. After all of the frantic discussion I had with @BobbyDigi, @UPSHitman, @UPSKingpin, @Church4252, and others, we were panicking at the fact that we had not gotten our confirmation emails about our orders. Turns out, the emails were in our spam inboxes. Lots of drama later, we were on our way.

Turns out, the site was just straight up broken, and even when following the instructions in the confirmation email, we couldn't complete the order and have it ready for pickup. Whole thing was a bust. But I went anyways.

When I got there, it was SUPER shady. Dude working the register was not having it. It was as if he was protecting a national treasure and was not allowed to talk about anything regarding it. I finally showed him my confirmation email on my phone and he looked at me and, no joke, quietly said to me "OK, we'll get through this together, and I'll make this work."

So after some false starts with the register, he finally got my order in, and I waited. And I received the food. And hot damn, it was SO GOOD.

My guess from an outsider's perspective here (I get some Taco Bell maybe once every couple years.) it sounds like the entire secret pre-order and promotions was devised as a way to get more people to become familiar with the Taco Bell app.

I just used it as a fun reason to go to lunch with my girls. I tend to hyperbolize quite a bit in my stories for entertainment value. There were other Icrontians that were looking forward to this far more than I.

I went today to get this and a cheesy gordita crunch. The quesalupa was pretty good and I'll definitely be getting it again. The cheesy gordita crunch wasn't melted at all in most parts, which is the main draw, so that was disappointing. I don't go to Taco Bell very often (once every 5-6 months?), but I'll probably go again next weekend and then off for a long time.

The staff at my Taco Bell were similarly perplexed. I placed an online order after following all the secret pre-order steps. I indicated I was on my way to pick it up during the prescribed time. When I arrived, they were confused about my request to pick up an online order, yet their words and actions suggested they were preparing an online order and just knew it had to be for me--as though I was the only one who possibly could have ordered online during that time.

Turns out I wasn't the only dude, and I was given some other guy's order that happened to be the same as mine. And they were two magical Quesalupas.

But altogether it was a bit of a confused CF. And they were only okay. Wouldn't order again, but it was fun to be a part of some secret Taco Bell shenanigans.

Pretty much how I feel about all fast food since I stopped eating it. Every now and then, I end up in a situation where it makes sense to grab a fast food meal. No matter where I get it from (TBell, McD, Wendy's, BK, et al), I end up thinking "why did I used to eat this stuff so much?"

Same boat. The only fast food I actively like nowadays is a breakfast biscuit from Hardee's (their biscuits are baked in-house and they're quite good) and Culver's burgers are pretty damned good. I still have a soft spot in my heart for an Arby's beef n' cheddar but that's about the extent of it. One thing about living in Detroit is that the only fast food chain anywhere around me is McDonalds or Burger King and I've been over both of those since I was a teenager.

Yeah.... the Hardee's breakfast biscuits are pretty good, but there's no Hardee's anywhere near here. Last time I ate it was in North Carolina while on vacation. Tasty, but I could feel my arteries hardening from all the butter flavored margarine.